WASHINGTON -- Dr. Henry Foster's nomination as U.S. surgeon general is in trouble at the White House because he did something legal that Bill Clinton supports.
Which can be very dangerous these days.
It used to be that it took an illegal act to knock you off as a Clinton nominee.
Kimba Wood and Zoe Baird got shot down for attorney general because they didn't pay their taxes or hired illegal aliens.
And Lani Guinier lost out as assistant attorney general for civil rights when Clinton discovered he disagreed with her views. Which was the same problem the last surgeon general, Joycelyn Elders, ran into.
But Foster is different. An obstetrician/gynecologist, he has performed abortions. Legal abortions.
And Bill Clinton has said he supports the right of a woman to choose an abortion.
So what's the problem? There are about 1.5 million legal abortions performed each year in America and somebody has got to be doing them.
But the White House is now saying that Clinton thought Foster had performed only a single abortion in his career. Foster says he has performed fewer than a dozen.
Who cares? Well, according to some strange new math, "fewer than a dozen" is the limit of what Bill Clinton will stomach. More than that and Foster is in trouble with him.
For the moment, Clinton is still backing Foster. But not very strongly. Try counting how many "weasel" words are hidden in Bill Clinton's ringing support for his nominee. Heck, I'll make it easy for you. I'll put them in italics.
"If he has done what he has said he has done, I don't think that would disqualify him," Clinton said of Foster on Monday. "We're going to have hearings. It's going to go forward. If the facts are no different than I understand them to be, I don't understand why he'd be in trouble."
And, gee, I just don't understand why some people think that you can't trust Bill Clinton.
Once upon a time, way back in the spring of 1992 before he was elected, Clinton said he was going to name only those people to the Supreme Court who supported a woman's right to choose. He said this would be a litmus test.
Then, after he got elected, he changed his mind.
At his first formal press conference, President Clinton was asked if the litmus test was still on.
"I will not ask any potential Supreme Court nominees how he or she would vote in any particular case," he said. "I will not do that."
And now we learn that Clinton has "devolved" even further.
He may dump his nominee for surgeon general if it turns out the nominee performed too many (i.e., a dozen or more) legal abortions.
Who is Henry Foster? Who is this "abortionist?"
He is a 61-year-old former dean and acting president of a black medical school who founded the "I Have a Future Program," which is "aimed at delaying sexual activity and raising self-respect among teen-agers."
The program was even was one of George Bush's "Points of Light."
Foster supports condom distribution (and condoms prevent pregnancies that can lead to abortions, don't they?), but says: "In my work with teen-agers, abstinence has always been stressed as my first priority."
If a woman chooses to have an abortion, he says, "My wish is that it be safe, legal and rare."
And Clinton should have stepped forward immediately and said: pTC Abortion is legal in this country. I have always supported a woman's right to choose a legal abortion. And therefore I give my unqualified support to Dr. Foster with no ifs, ands or buts."
Instead, we get Clinton's lukewarm support on one hand and blasts of hot air from the right on the other.
"It doesn't matter if he killed 12 babies or 1,200 -- Foster was still a paid killer who should not even be considered for the post as chief medic," said Don Treshman of Rescue America.
But Treshman is wrong. Foster is not a killer, paid or otherwise.
The people who shoot doctors at abortion clinics are killers.
Besides, in reading interviews with Foster, one gets the clear impression that he is proudest of having performed a much different kind of medical procedure.
"I have personally delivered more than 10,000 babies in nearly 30 years of practice," Foster said.
And I don't see how you can get more pro-life than that.